John, another nice example is provided by the history of ideas in
what is now called thermodynamics. I have an 1815 Brittanica which
reviews the two rival theories of heat: one that it is a state of
motion of molecules, the other that it is a fluid, called "caloric".
It is an excellent article, running to many pages and thoroughly
detailed, including the mathematical derivation of most of the basic
results. And as it points out, there was (at that time) no way to
decide which of these theories was "right", and that indeed they
produced identical mathematical equations, so one could simply
believe one's favorite story and still get the sums right. (01)
Pat
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
IHMC (850)434 8903 or (650)494 3973 home
40 South Alcaniz St. (850)202 4416 office
Pensacola (850)202 4440 fax
FL 32502 (850)291 0667 cell
http://www.ihmc.us/users/phayes phayesAT-SIGNihmc.us
http://www.flickr.com/pathayes/collections (02)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (03)
|